If you have been around Ye Old Underdog Millionaire Tip Sheet for awhile, you’ll know that I have a secret marketing weapon that is not available to anyone else on the planet.
You see, my dog happens to be one of the best sales and marketing mentors around. He’s been with me when I came up with many new ideas for products and today is no exception.
My 90-pound friend has an ear infection. The only reason I know that is because he told me. At first he shook his head a little more than usual. Then he scratched more than usual. When I didn’t get the hint, he would pace around the house and dive-bomb the carpet so he could slide across his head, like a baseball player sliding into home.
…I finally got the clue and today we are going to the vet.
So, what on earth does my dog’s rotten ear have anything to do with your business? Plenty. When something is not quite right in your business, there are many tell-tale signs that were given BEFORE the bigger problem occurs.
Maybe you lost half your customers to your competition. However, for months before that, you were slacking off on your customer service, you went cheap on your marketing, or maybe you didn’t call a few people back, because it wasn’t convenient.
Perhaps you overheard a customer’s negative comment. Maybe you got a few emails out of the blue, asking you to fix certain things about your business.
These are all signs of a small business ear infection. They are completely reversible, but will take some actual work on your part. A business does not go south overnight.
When a business gets in big trouble is right about the time the owner has stopped tuning in to the signals, or even worse, has lost passion and excitement for the business.
If you want to avoid a goopy ear in your business then you need to make sure you address the little things as they happen. When you get a single email from a customer about something, it usually means that there are hundreds of others thinking the same thing, with only one brave soul letting you know.
Don’t assume that all complaints are immediately wrong. Just because it’s your business does not make you the “super-fancy king of the universe.” The only reason you are around is because your customers allow you to be. Without them, you are left holding the penicillin.
There are other times when your business is running like a well-oiled machine, your customers love you, but you just aren’t growing. This is most-likely due to the fact that you’ve not branched out in enough directions to get more customers (and you may need to increase the dollar amount and frequency of each sale).
If you’re looking for 101 different ways to get customers completely for free, no matter what business you are in, then you might want to sign up for the Underdog Millionaire 101 notification list (upper right hand corner of the blog).
This is a separate list from the Tip Sheet, and only people on it will receive a big ‘ol pile of extra goodies on launch day.
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Until tomorrow,
Joshua Black
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{ 4 comments }
Joshua:
How could it have taken you so long to read the signs from your 90-lb. friend? Call animal control. Just kidding! I hope he recovers quickly.
I really enjoyed the post. I have to admit that I did chuckle when reading the post and how you related your dogs ear infection to a business infection. But it is so true.
We have to really be in tune with what is going on in our business. It is so much easier to recover from a small problem. If we let the small problems slide, they will inevitably turn into big problems. I would rather deal with a bunch of small problems than one big problem. Of course there will always be those people that you can never please no matter what you try.
- Rick
Hey Rick,
In my defense, my dog is a little crazy in general and in order to get my attention he shakes his head so his collar rattles. Sometimes I get the two signals confused.
Yep, recovering from a small problem is MUCH easier than trying to overhaul your business after is has gone down the toilet.
-Josh
Hi Joshua,
Great analogy mate and you have really made me think about any possible “tell tale” signs. Just recently I got an email from a couple in Ireland who were asking about a whole range of things and if I was able to help them.
Well of course I was willing and gave them whatever I could to help them overcome a couple of little challenges they were having getting set up with their blog.
BUT…the point I would like to make is in part of their reply to me just yesterday and they said “……..so we are so grateful you responded and gave us some of your time because we had visited 27 blogs up until then and had not received a single reply”
Now to be fair the blogs they had visited were all VERY big players and not a relatively new comer like me so they probably had hundreds of comments posted on their blogs regularly….but surely all blog owners should at least try and respond or am I being naive?
As you so rightly pointed out to me recently a blog is only as good as the readership. But I guess some big bloggers get their readership anyway without having to make any responses. Great post mate…enjoyed it. My 2 dogs are 70kg Rotties so lets hope there are no ear infections coming in my lot!
Peter,
Yes, the bigger bloggers do have trouble keeping up with their readership. It’s hard, becasue they become much more defensive, thinking that people will take adavantage of them later… and they have hundreds of thousands of people reading their work. However, it is only a matter of time for a larger blog to become a smaller blog if the readers don’t feel as if they have a connection to the person running the site. They will eventally leave, just like any other business that doesn’t pay attention to their customers.
Where the big guys win right now is that their free content is unmatched anywhere else, but you can only out-free people for so long.
-Joshua Black